The Church of Saint Clare or Klara Church ( sv, Klara kyrka) is a
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Ch ...
in central
Stockholm. Since 1989, the
Swedish Evangelical Mission
The Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM) (Swedish: "Evangelical Homeland Foundation", EFS) is an independent, low-church, New Evangelical () movement within the Church of Sweden. It emphasizes the importance of lay involvement in the church and ...
is responsible for its activities.
The Church of Saint Clare is located on
Klara Västra Kyrkogata in the
Klara area in lower
Norrmalm
Norrmalm is a city district in Stockholm, Sweden.
History
Norrmalm is part of the larger borough of Norrmalm (''Norrmalms stadsdelsområde'').
The southern part of the district, Lower Norrmalm (''Nedre Norrmalm''), also known as City, con ...
. The Klara area (also known in Swedish as Klarakvarteren) takes its name from the church. This name has become synonymous with the old city that once occupied lower Norrmalm.
History

The
Convent and Church of St. Clare was founded on the site in 1280s. In 1527,
Gustav Vasa
Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560, previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm ('' Riksför ...
, King of Sweden, had the church and convent torn down. Construction of the current church started in 1572 under
Johan III.
The graveyard which is almost surrounded now by modern buildings was started in the 17th century.
The church tower was built as part of restoration work in the 1880s and is tall.
[Hall, Thomas (2008). ''Stockholm: The Making of a Metropolis''. Routledge. p. 207]
The church contains a 35-bell
carillon
A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmon ...
, which was cast by the in 1965.
See also
*
History of Stockholm
The history of Stockholm, capital of Sweden, for many centuries coincided with the development of what is today known as Gamla stan, the Stockholm Old Town. Stockholm's '' raison d'être'' always was to be the Swedish capital and by far the larg ...
References
External links
*
Cemeteries in Sweden
Churches in Stockholm
Churches in the Diocese of Stockholm (Church of Sweden)
Churches converted from the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of Sweden
Swedish Evangelical Mission church buildings
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